Terrorists convicted of Samaria man's brutal murder

Arab terrorists led their Jewish employer to a side room, brutally murdered him hours before Sukkot holiday.

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David Rosenberg, 25/03/18 19:20

Reuven Shmerling

Elkana Local Council

The Arab terrorists responsible for the murder of a 70-year-old Jewish man from Samaria last October were found guilty by a district court in Lod Sunday afternoon.

On October 4th, just hours before the start of the Sukkot festival, Yousuf Khaled Mustafa Kamil and Muhammad Ziyad Abu Al-Roub murdered their employer, Reuven Shmerling in a warehouse in the Israeli-Arab town of Kafr Qasim [Kfar Qassem].

The two terrorists, both residents of the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Qabatiya in Samaria, had crossed into pre-1967 Israel illegally in September of 2017, and had planned to carry out a terror attack against Jews prior to their employment with Shmerling.

Shmerling, a resident of the nearby Samaria town of Elkana, was to have celebrated his 70th birthday with his family the evening of his murder.

During the attack, Al-Roub and Kamil beat Shmerling stabbed him repeatedly with a butcher knife.

After Shmerling’s son, also a resident of Elkana, found his father in the warehouse, emergency first responders were called to the scene, but were unable to stabilize Shmerling’s condition.

"When we arrived at the scene we were led to a building where we found a man of about seventy lying unconscious,” said Adi Marciano. “He was not breathing and had no heartbeat. We performed medical tests and he did not show any signs of life. We were forced to declare his death at the scene."

The two terrorists later revealed that they had planned the murder as “revenge” for the death of a fellow terrorist, Ahmad Abu Al-Roub, who was killed while attempting to stab Israeli security officers at the Jalameh Crossing.

On Sunday, the two terrorists were convicted of murder and of illegal entry into pre-1967 Israel.